ARMED FORCES: Drawing the Line

More than 300 of the 3,322 captured Americans back from Korea have been accused of wrongful conduct during their ordeal as prisoners.* Last week, in deciding one case, the Army drew a clear line between pardonable and punishable conduct while in Red hands. The accused: Lieut. Colonel Harry Fleming, 46, the first American officer ever court-martialed for collaborating with his captors.

Fleming, who joined the Army as a private in 1942, went to Korea in 1950, spent 50 days in combat and 34 months in prison camps. According to Army witnesses, he was elected camp leader “because he seemed to have gotten along O.K.” with the Reds: he led Marxist study groups, made Red propaganda recordings, and mouthed the Communist line about “the imperialistic, capitalistic Wall Street warmongers.”

On the stand, slight, white-haired Fleming made it plain he considered the recordings “just a bunch of hogwash,” but had “cooperated” in return for Red favors—”dog meat for a meal or a couple of sulfa pills.” He had told his fellow prisoners: “I cannot tell you to resist; it’s up to you. Let your conscience be your guide.” Personally, he said, he cared only about survival for his men and himself. “I decided,” said Colonel Fleming, “that the most futile thing in the world was a dead prisoner of war.”

The overall record of American prisoners in Korea showed that resistance to Red demands was neither futile nor lethal; defiant captives usually fared as well as abject collaborators. Last week the court of eleven officers evidently decided that—in the absence of dire and direct physical duress—dog meat, sulfa pills or any other material benefits were not reason enough for Fleming’s conduct. The verdict: guilty of collaboration. The sentence: dishonorable dismissal, with forfeiture of all pay and allowances.

The outcome did not seem to bother Fleming very much. He planned an appeal “to clear my name,” but, relieved by the light sentence, he happily made plans for his civilian future. After a trip to California, he said, “I intend to go into a business I’ve been interested in for 20 years—the marine sporting-supply business. Motorboating is my hobby.”

* Evidence was culled from other prisoners, Red publications and broadcasts. After a public court of inquiry, the Marine Corps drastically curtailed the career of its only offender, Colonel Frank Schwable. In secret investigations, the Air Force quietly cleared 69, discharged six of its 83 unnamed suspects, the others are still under investigation. The Army plans to court-martial about 35 of its 225 cases, has already tried two men who switched to Communism: Corporals Edward Dickenson (ten years) and Claude Batchelor (verdict expected this week).